Monthly Archives: July 2009

Post navigation

Gidget, perhaps the dominant animal icon of this generation, passed away today at the age of 105 (Lorne Greene’s calculation).

Fans of the legendary chihuaha crowded the gates of her Santa Clarita compound, where she reportedly died peacefuly; however, media and police alike are investigating allegations that the death was a homicide when her owner’s car backed up too suddenly.

“She was the most gifted animal entertainer of all time,” said a visibly shaken Ronald McDonald, whose fast-food rivalry with Gidget turned into a poignant friendship over the years. “She broke boundaries and blazed trails. No sane person would have owned a chihuaha or even a pug before she came along. Nothing’s changed as far as that goes, really — but you see a lot more chihuahas now.”

A regionally televised memorial is scheduled for Friday at Universal Studios. City officials expect four million people and have preemptively bankrupted the city to ensure that the expected crowds have enough portapotties.

President Obama, while calling Gidget “a model for pets and fast-food spokespersons everywhere,” declined to attend the memorial, saying that he is “positively swamped with this difficult business of ruining your children’s future.”

As the nation grieves the passing of a national treasure, some see an irony in past GOP efforts to deport Gidget, an undocumented animal found by American tourists in Ensenada and initially mistaken for a rat.

In lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to buy chalupas, on sale through Sunday.

I think David Brooks is on to something here, when he says that Obama isn’t feared enough by Congressional liberals to get his way. This could get ugly for him and for the nation, if he doesn’t show a little more backbone.

I was taking my afternoon constitution down a Valley thoroughfare the other day when I saw a blind man about to cross the street, so I offered to help out.

Being sighted, I never thought about how hard it must be for a blind person to navigate his way across sans an audio clue like a buzzing or beeping sound for when the light is going to change. After all, they have them in Santa Monica. I mentioned this to this man who agreed that it would be more to have one.

Later on, I googled and called my councilman and suggested that the city install more lights to help the visually impaired cross the street. I know it would be costly but necessary to help those with disabilities, and I can only hope that others will do the same.

In case you didn’t have a reason to go to TMZ, check out this video of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, KTLA anchor Lu Parker and host-about-town Ryan Seacrest exiting Mozzo after presumably dining together.

Funny: The headline at TMZ is “Seacrest out … with the Mayor?!” … no mention of Ms. Parker.

And this, dear readers, is exactly why we should not legalize marijuana.

“Hey listen. Pot is not a bad thing. When’s the last time that someone got clocked in the head by someone else because they were stoned?! How about when they were intoxicated? Haha. I know, I know, I’m still wrong according to some. I understand that many of you don’t like the idea of pot being legalized, but wouldn’t you rather see someone stoned on the couch rather than running over a family because they were so blasted drunk that they believed that their pine fresh scent hanger on the front mirror of the car was real and they swerved to miss the “tree”, then swerved to miss the other “tree”? Hahaha. People, I’ve never tried pot before, and sorry to the policemen readin this, but, I think it’s a wonderful idea! I mean, having something to open your senses once in a while. Sometimes you need that in this world. I mean, come on. Where would the Beatles have gone if not for some “new experiences” or any bands of the sixties.

Oh! And somethin else to ponder in your completely “clear heads”. hahahaha Maybe pot could help us get out of this horrible recession. Just think, everyone could be happier, money or no money, and there could, quite possibly be an elimination of threat or harm to one another, cause whose really to blame when we would rather not have the Atomic bomb blow up, but rather, the “atomic bong”?! hahahah Alright, I’m out people, love, happiness, and peace to all!”

Say what you will about habitual marijuana smokers. They’re no better and probably no worse than an equivalent number of sloppy drunks.

There’s nothing pretty or noble about smoking so much pot that you can’t move off the couch, or drinking oneself to a failing liver.

The significant effort expended in government resources on keeping marijuana illegal and therefore somewhat harder to obtain than alcohol simply cannot be justified.

I don’t doubt that more people would smoke marijuana if it were legal, but what we’re doing now isn’t working.

We’re not going to ban the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages anytime soon. Prohibition didn’t work. Now it’s time to throw up our collective hands when it comes to anti-marijuana laws, stop the charade that is “medical marijuana” (aka quasi-legal cannabis sale to just about anybody with even a little motivation to obtain a prescription) and just out-and-out make pot legal, regulate its growth and sale — and tax the hell out of it.

The economic benefit to the state with marijuana as both a cash crop and tax boon is too large to ignore in these troubled times.

Let individuals decide whether or not they wish to indulge in alcohol or marijuana. Use a portion of the resultant tax revenue to fund education on the perils of these drugs’ abuse and on treatment of the resultant addictions.

The average stoner can barely put together a sentence, let alone perpetrate a violent crime, so let’s get real and get out of this futile front on the failing war on drugs.

I agree with Earl that the prohibition experience shows why it’s pointless to ban certain substances. I often favor a society in which government allows people to do any thing, while culture encourages people to do the right thing.

I don’t “get” pot and I never liked pot. But I’ve also seen, based on my Muslim teetotalling background, how counterproductive it is to ban a popular substance, since a) it pushes it underground, turning ordinary people into criminals, and b) it adds to its popularity by giving it a compellingly rogue quality.

It’s the same reason I side with the Amethyst Initiative folks in seeking to lower the drinking age: Making something off limits often guarantees it’ll be inordinately coveted by those who aren’t given permission to have it. Hmm, maybe marriage falls in that category too….

Few things are more disgruntling than trying to have a conversation with someone who has checked out for another planet. That’s part of the reason I don’t think that marijuana should be legalized. It’s hard enough to have a sane and rational conversation without dealing with someone with paisley brain cells.

When trying to justify the legalization of marijuana, some may point a crooked finger at prohibition and the legalization of hooch, but it is possible to have one or two drinks without going over the edge. With marijuana that’s just not the case. You are either stoned or you are not.

And people have gotten themselves into some pretty fine fixes when they are high. Even though the official cause of the September 2008 Metrolink train crash that killed 25 people was text messaging, an investigation also turned up marijuana in the conductor’s bloodstream. Residues of the drug have also been found in the bodies of other crash and accident victims as well. I know I wouldn’t want a dentist working on me who was stoned or a customer service rep, though I am sure it’s already gone down.

Earl and Rob may point to the “if you can’t beat them then join them” philosophy or say that people are going to do it anyway so you might as well let them, but that would be like saying that looting should be legalized during a riot because everyone in some neighborhoods is going to do that, too.

The only time cannabis should be legalized is for medicinal purposes. Other than that, we should hold a giant bonfire and burn the stuff.

Just when I thought UPS couldn’t be stranger, they go and outdo themselves. My latest tango with the company started when I embarked on one of my favorite hobbies, shopping, the place, deep in the throws of cyberspace.

Like most expert shoppers, I operate on the following premise: If I think I am going to need it at some point in the future, it will be placed in my cart, even if it is a cyber-cart. So if I think an outfit would be good for high tea with the emperor of Thailand, then I will go ahead and buy it regardless of whether or not I know who he even is. Die-hard shoppers are like that. We like to be prepared.

So I hit the “complete order” tab, which is when the whole affair began to unravel.

My regular delivery man, Miguel, is wonderful, kind and helpful, but alas he was absent the day the order arrived. I knew this when their requisite gold and white calling card was on my door but when the package was not laying on my back patio, which is where he usually throws the thing.

The requisite phone calls to UPS headquarters helped. They would reroute it to the local headquarters where I would pick it up later that night.

There at 8:12 p.m., I waited my turn in line. The problem was someone in front of me who apparently showed up on a weekly basis.

The clerk looked at him and said, “Sir, we’ve already told you several times to call ahead with this. Now everyone is going to have to wait in line while I go look for your package.”

Being late already, that was something up with which was not going to put (borrowing a phrase from Winston Churchill.) If someone had the IQ and consideration of a string bean then I had to suffer as well. He was going to have to be that way somewhere else.

She accepted his slip anyway and she disappeared into the black hole of a place known of as the UPS Shipping and Receiving area. I, in turn, pulled out my trusty cell phone while he waited, looked in his direction and used the word “idiot.” When the employee returned without his package, she repeated the company policy again, which he apparently hadn’t followed thus far.

When my turn came, they nearly lost my package but then later found it in the time it takes to drive a mile on an LA freeway. Meanwhile, I had been there for an hour, so I called the manager to ask why they didn’t follow their own rules and why everyone therefore had to wait because of one nimrod.

I described the nimrod as being a nimrod, which I thought was pretty mild considering all the other words I could have used, but he got mad and told me not to disparage anyone as if being politically correct was the point of the whole thing to begin with. Maybe a packing crate landed on his head.

One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first acts on taking office in 1933 was to push hard for the end of the prohibition of liquor. FDR had three motives for wanting to kick the nation off of its forced wagon. The first was that prohibition made no sense. People were going to drink, and drink, and drink, law or no law. The second was that it made a mockery of the law since everybody with a backyard, and a fence around it, tossed up a makeshift still, bootleggers turned the illicit trade in alcohol into a lucrative and bloody business, and cops and politicians (including one occupant of the White House) guzzled away on the rot gut while they turned a blind eye to the payoffs, graft and non-existent enforcement of prohibition.

The third reason was that state and federal governments were losing a kings ransom in taxes, licensing fees, and business permit fees from prohibition. Now substitute marijuana for alcohol and insert legal prohibition after it and we have the same disastrous scenario. That is a big consumer use and demand, a thumb nose at the law, and the further bankrupting of states trying to lock up legions of non-violent drug offenders. Finally as some on the L.A. City Council realize a king’s ransom in taxes is being lost by trying to enforce a silly, outdated drug law. In 1933 the right call was to legalize alcohol. In the 2009 the right call is to legalize pot.